What riddle can be used to guess the zodiac?

Round ears, long beard, sharp mouth covered with dust, hiding in caves during the day and stealing food at night. Answer: mouse

Wearing a yellow fur coat with horns on his head, Cleisthenes Cleisthenes barked and ate grass. Answer: Cow

It is wearing a colorful yellow fur coat and running around in the deep mountains and forests. It is the king of all animals and the proudest. Answer: Tiger

Long ears and short tail, red eyes and white fur, skipping around and eating grass with three mouths. Answer: rabbit

Flying in the clouds? , ? Call the wind and rain on earth? Long beard and antlers, wearing scales is the brightest. Answer: dragon

The body is as soft as noodles, crawling and running without hands and feet, curling and climbing trees, sitting and crawling and lying down. Answer: snake

The long mane of the tail floats around, which can pull carts and love running, and help farmers make contributions. Answer: horse

Young and qualified, with a long beard floating in the wind, there is nothing to mumble about, and green grass runs everywhere. Answer: sheep

Looks like a man and a dog? Imitate naughty people who love peaches and climb trees and poles to make everyone laugh. Answer: monkey

Wear armor without planting, and have a hibiscus flower on your head. Although he is not a hero, he is called by thousands of families. Answer: chicken

Natural skills, will know people, will look after the house. I want to bite when I see a stranger, and I want to bite when I see my master wagging his tail. Answer: dogs.

He has a round body and a long mouth, and he likes to hum. When he is free, he calls it a farmer's treasure. Answer: pig

Extended data:

The Zodiac, also known as the Zodiac, is twelve kinds of animals in China that match the twelve earthly branches according to the year of birth, including rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, sheep, monkeys, chickens, dogs and pigs.

The origin of the zodiac is related to animal worship. According to the Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Shuihudi, Hubei Province and Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province, there was a relatively complete zodiac system in the pre-Qin period. The earliest handed down document that recorded the same Chinese zodiac as the modern one was Lun Heng written by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The zodiac is an intuitive representation of the twelve earthly branches, namely, Zi (mouse), Ugly (ox), Yin (tiger), Mao (rabbit), Chen (dragon), Si (snake), Wu (horse), Wei (sheep), Shen (monkey), You (chicken) and Xu (chicken). In modern times, more people regard the zodiac as the mascot of the Spring Festival and become a symbol of entertainment and cultural activities.

As a long-standing symbol of folk culture, the zodiac has left a lot of poems, Spring Festival couplets, paintings, calligraphy and paintings and folk arts and crafts that depict the image and symbolic meaning of the zodiac. Apart from China, many countries in the world issue stamps of the zodiac during the Spring Festival to express their wishes for the New Year in China.

origin

Ancient literature records have not solved the problem of the cultural origin of the zodiac, and scholars in ancient and modern times have different opinions on this.

Constellation theory

The ancients divided the stars near the ecliptic and equator into "28 stars". Twenty-eight nights also represent an animal In ancient times, Sunday was divided into twelve parts, represented by twelve branches. Twelve branches belonged to the zodiac, and the zodiac had a corresponding relationship with twenty-eight stars. Wang Chang, a great scholar in the Ming Dynasty, believed that 28 species of animals belonged to 28 stars, and formed a pattern of "mother bats, false grandmice, endangered moon swallows, and females" by "unity of seven obscenities". In the Qing Dynasty, Li Changqing thought in "Guan Yanyu of Matsushita" that the 28-lodging animals were "the first 12 genera", with Kang Jinlong, Chen Guan and Jiao Mujiao attached. Jiao, Long Ye "reflects the gathering of 28 Chinese zodiac signs based on the twelve Chinese zodiac signs. "But it is inevitable that there will be collateral encounters, and the records of the 28 stars animals are later than the zodiac.

Casual theory

The ivory carving of Jupiter in the zodiac runs once a week for twelve years, and the annual branch order can be determined from the position of Jupiter. Uncle Yu Hanfang Shanji holds that every twelve years, "three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, three years old, and there is a great drought", and he also says that "the world is six years old, six years old, one year old, one year old." There is a cycle between the rise and fall of plants and the living environment of animals. The living conditions of herbivores (rats, cows, horses and sheep) and carnivorous omnivores are very different in different years. If people born in different years can imitate the animals that flourished in that year, they will form zodiac animals, and it is inferred that the rise and fall of animals are related to the year of Jupiter, and the zodiac and the zodiac are unified.

Totem theory

The ancestors of the primitive society who carved white marble in the zodiac often used some animals, inanimate or natural phenomena as the patron saint and symbol of this clan, that is, totems. The mixed image of man and beast in Shan Hai Jing is an ancient totem god. ? The totem of Xia nationality is bear or fish, the totem of Shang nationality is blackbird, and the totem of Zhou nationality is dragon, bird, turtle, dog and tiger. Zodiac animals are imaginary except dragons, and the rest are daily visible. Among them, it can be divided into two categories, namely "six animals" (horses, cows, sheep, chickens, dogs and pigs) and "six animals" (rats, tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes and monkeys). The former is animals domesticated by people for economic purposes, while the latter disturbs human life to a certain extent, and their ancestors are afraid of them. Therefore, these animals are worshipped as the name symbols of this clan.

Ethnologist Liu Yaohan inferred the origin of the "Zodiac Calendar" from the totem relics of the Yi people. The zodiac calendars of Yi and Maoren in western Guangxi, in which people are listed in the zodiac, are "the legacy of the original idea of not distinguishing between people and animals in reality". The Yi people still use the Chinese zodiac to mark the date and use it as the name of the market (such as Tiger Street and Rabbit Street). "Historical Records of Five Emperors" describes that the Yellow Emperor "taught Xiong Yong to fight against Emperor Yan in Sakamoto's wilderness", which is the totem of various tribes and is by no means truly capable of saving the tiger from the dragon. Zodiac originated from totem worship in primitive society and became a convincing theory.

Singularity theory

In the Qing Dynasty, Zhao Yi wrote in "Examination of Jade Cong" that "it doesn't matter whether ugly children are ugly or not at the beginning of the custom of covering the north, but when rats, cows, tigers and rabbits are divided into different ages, they spread to China, so they don't waste their ears", and recognized the exotic nature of the 12 zodiac animals.

In Shi Ganzhi, Guo Moruo believes that the zodiac originated from the Babylonian zodiac, and the western countries formulated the zodiac in the Han Dynasty after imitating the zodiac. Ancient countries such as ancient Greece, ancient Egypt and Babylon also had similar zodiac signs, but the animals were different, so the zodiac may not have originated in China. However, the excavation of Qin bamboo slips overturns this theory, and all countries in the world have similar animal worship, which strengthens the rationality of totem theory.